


And Almost Home (The Coal Hill Remix)

by paranoidangel



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranoidangel/pseuds/paranoidangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Ian and Barbara's first day back at school they find a couple of the teachers aren't quite what they expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Almost Home (The Coal Hill Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Two Years Gone (And Almost Home)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961493) by [PhoenixDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixDragon/pseuds/PhoenixDragon). 



> Beta by Selenay

The days of going home to an empty flat, faced only with a pile of marking, were long gone. During the two years they'd been travelling in a police box with an irritable old man, Ian and Barbara had grown closer. Now, hardly a day went by when they didn't see each other. Today was no exception, and Ian smiled broadly at Barbara when he answered the door.

He managed to wait until she was inside before greeting her with a kiss and relaxing into her warm embrace. Before she could take her coat off and then have to put it back on again, he said, "Why don't we go to the pub?" After two years he'd forgotten how much teenagers could drive you to drink.

Barbara shook her head and let him go. "Let's stay in." She held up a bottle of wine.

He smiled. "I knew I kept you around for a reason." He took the bottle and her coat from her. "How was your first day back at school?"

"Bring me a glass of wine and I'll tell you," she said over her shoulder, as she headed to his sofa to make herself comfortable.

He raised an eyebrow, but left his question until he'd joined her. "That bad?" he asked, passing Barbara her drink and settling down beside her.

She had a sip and shook her head. "Not really." When she leaned against him, he put an arm round her. "Not as bad as being locked up or chased by Daleks."

He chuckled. There was something to be said for life on Earth: even the worst students weren't that bad.

While he was considering the merits of teaching versus travelling, Barbara added, "I hadn't realised how much I missed teaching."

"Neither had I." He smiled at her thoughts mirroring his. They'd spent enough time together over the past two years that sometimes he almost thought he could read her mind. She somehow managed to read his, more often than not.

"The staff seem to think the same of us as everyone else has. Sandra said something about us being more than just friends. Given that we didn't get a chance to spend more than a minute with each other today, I don't know where she got that from." She shook her head.

He sighed. They'd been back for two months now, and everyone seemed to have noticed the difference in their friendship. It was all the time they'd spent being the only two people who could really understand how the other had felt as they went from place to place, and history to future, that had made them closer. Of course, since what other people noticed was the truth they had long since stopped bothering to deny it and that seemed to quell most interest. It was probably just as well that none of the Coal Hill students had got wind of this yet - there was nothing they liked better than gossip about the teachers.

"There was something odd, though," Barbara went on.

"Oh?" Ian sat up a little straighter, wondering if she'd had the same experience with her replacement as he'd had with his.

She sat up herself so she could face him. He moved his arm to lie along the back of the sofa. "I went to my old classroom and discovered it had been moved."

"Ah, yes." He had found that out when he'd gone to look for her at lunch and discovered she was no longer next door. That had been a disappointment, but these days he didn't have to worry about only having the school day to see her in.

That wasn't what Barbara had wanted to discuss, though. "There was a teacher in there, newly qualified I think - she was very young. Apparently Margaret has been on long term sick leave since we left and this teacher had been filling in for her."

He frowned. "That's odd, Margaret seemed perfectly healthy to me."

"I know." She put her wine glass on the coffee table. "That's not the strangest thing about it either..."

* * *

"Sorry to disturb you." Barbara smiled apologetically at the young woman, upon discovering the change in classroom. As she turned to leave, her eye caught the quote on the back wall, which said: _Not all those who wander are lost_.

"Favourite literary quotes."

Barbara looked over and found the young woman was gesturing towards the display on the wall which used to hold history charts from whatever periods she was teaching at the time.

"It's always interesting to see how many people recognise them." She held her books in her arms and came over from the desk to stand beside Barbara.

Barbara nodded. She knew a few of them herself and there were others that were familiar, but she couldn't put a name to. "You spent a lot of time making this room nice."

The woman shrugged, but smiled at the compliment. "It's been good practise, and English is the same wherever you go. It only changes slowly."

It sounded more like she was talking about the variation of the language over time, rather than distance, but Barbara told herself firmly that they were now back in their own time and weren't going to be leaving it. She didn't have to think about time as something fluid any more.

"But I don't think I've altered the room too much."

"No, you haven't," Barbara assured her, not that it mattered. "Even the desks are the same." They were looking a little more worn, but she knew the school didn't have the money to buy new ones unless they were on their last legs. The students only carved notes into them anyway.

"It's changed a bit since my time." The woman looked around the room nostalgically. She must have been a student here. "No blackboards, it's all white boards these days." She looked guilty all of a sudden. "I mean, it was. Where I taught before I came here. Private school. Clara Oswald." She held out a hand and Barbara tried not to feel like she was changing the subject on purpose.

"Barbara Wright. It was lovely to meet you, but I really should be going." They exchanged smiles, then Barbara went back to the office to ask one of the secretaries where her new classroom was.

* * *

Barbara shook her head. "If I didn't know better, I would have said she taught in the future."

Ian nodded slowly. "You know you could be right." He sipped his wine before putting the glass down beside Barbara's. "I met a time traveller myself today..."

* * *

"Oh, sorry." Ian stopped just inside the doorway when he found a young man in a tweed jacket boiling water over a Bunsen burner. "I thought this was my classroom."

The man looked round, and Ian could see he was wearing a bow tie, which wasn't something you often saw at Coal Hill. "Come in, Chatterton, I was just packing up. And making tea. Would you like a cup? I say cup, it'll have to be a beaker, I'm afraid." He held up a beaker that Ian hoped was clean.

"It's Chesterton, and there is tea in the staffroom," he pointed out. Even though he'd had to skip his usual cup this morning.

"But this is more fun, isn't it?"

Since Ian had once said the same thing himself, he didn't really feel he could complain too much. Besides, he was quite partial to a cup of tea before facing students again for the first time in two years.

The man grinned and poured some milk into the beakers. That explained the mystery of the missing milk in the staffroom. "I've left everything as I found it. I think." He looked around frowning, then opened the drawer Ian used to keep the chalk in. "You need some more tea bags," he said, pulling two out and adding them to the beakers.

Ian decided not to mention he hadn't kept any tea in his classroom to begin with. He didn't think the man was likely to listen. He seemed to be very fond of the sound of his own voice. "So you were my replacement?"

"Oh, didn't I say?" He paused in pouring the now-boiling water. "Sorry, forgot you wouldn't recognise me. I'm the Doctor, but everyone here calls me John Smith."

Ian blinked and didn't react to the beaker of tea being placed in front of him on the desk. "You've been teaching science?"

"Yes. Great, isn't it?" John sipped his drink, even though the tea hadn't brewed yet. "Mind you, the headmaster didn't think so. The students kept nearly failing their exams. I think he was going to get rid of me. Did you know they know nothing about quantum theory?" He sounded as if that was a crime.

"This is only a comprehensive, that's a bit beyond them." Ian sipped at his tea carefully. It had an odd smell that he didn't want to think too much about, but was otherwise made just the way he liked it. How had John known how much sugar Ian took? He hadn't asked before pouring it in, and Ian hadn't been paying attention when he did.

John frowned. "Are you sure? Right, no, this is 1965. Sorry, forgot." John finished his tea in one gulp, then pocketed the beaker. "I should go, you'll have students in here soon, and I have places to go. I'm not used to staying on one planet for such a long time."

"It's only been two years," Ian said, but John wasn't listening.

"Say hello to Barbara for me. I'm sorry to have missed her." He smiled, put his hands to his lapels and strode out of the room.

Ian nearly dropped his beaker.

* * *

Barbara smiled. "So the Doctor is travelling with another young lady, and they taught at Coal Hill while we were gone."

Ian returned her smile. "Not very well, in the Doctor's case, from the sound of things. I don't think he quite has the patience for it."

She laughed, but he could see the sadness in her eyes. "I wish I'd seen him."

He took her hand. "Maybe we'll see him again." For Barbara's sake, and the expression on her face, he hoped so. The Doctor been a hard person to get to know, but he'd turned out to be well worth meeting and a good friend by the time they left.

"I miss him," she said, unconsciously echoing his thoughts again. When he looked at her with a worried expression, she squeezed his hand. "But I'm glad to be home. And even gladder to be with you." She leaned forward to kiss him again and remind him that wherever Barbara was, that was his home.


End file.
